Egypt Trip Report
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My wife and I visited Egypt over Christmas 2004. Our
vacation started in Cairo, took us to St Catherine's and Mount Sinai, over to
Sharm-el-Sheikh for some snorkeling, then on to Luxor where we had arranged a 4
night Nile River cruise down to Aswan. From there, we daytripped out to Abu
Simbel. We then returned to Luxor for another night, then back to Cairo for a
couple more days.
The overall impression of our trip is that Egypt has fantastic sights and lots
to see - but at the same time, we were very glad to leave, and don't see ever
going back. The 'hassle factor' is the highest of any country we've been to
(this includes Morocco, which is renowned for hassle). The amount of dishonesty
in the tourism business is unbelievable.
In this trip report, I will talk about this 'hassle factor', the sights we saw,
our Nile cruise, how we got around, the accommodations, the food, and our
safety.
From the minute we stepped off our British Airways flight,
people were trying to rip us off. It began with a visa scam. Although it is
possible to arrange a visa in advance, it was not necessary for Canadians. The
cost was US $30, and the visa "coupons" (looked more like stamps) could be
bought at the money exchange bureau right before immigration. The catch is that
the 30 price tag was the same in *any* currency, including Egyptian pounds(LE) -
and 6LE = $1 US. The price is actually written on the visa stamp, but after
stepping off such a long flight, most people don't notice they are being ripped
off. In addition, the ATM machines are strategically placed *after* immigration,
so unless you know about this particular scam and get Egyptian currency in your
home country before you leave, there's no easy way around it.
The hotel we had tried to book in advance, the Berlin
Hotel, refused to give us a reservation unless they personally picked us up
at the airport to guarantee we would keep our reservation, and also to avoid
taxi drivers demanding a 'finders fee' for bringing us to their hotel. We didn't
want to use Berlin's taxi service, as we had arranged complementary airport
pickup from the travel agency which would take us to some outlying pyramids the
following day. So, we ended up booking into the Victoria Hotel.
Meanwhile, we waited for our supposed complementary airport pickup. 20 minutes
after the arranged pick up time, we called (using our quad band AT&T GSM phone,
thankfully it worked, we really didn't want to deal with buying a phone card!)
and finally met up with our free transportation. After he fixed his mini-van, we
were on the way to the hotel.
The Victoria Hotel, at $37 US a night, was
pretty expensive, but very nice. Clean, reasonably central (5 minutes from the
metro), internet cafe on the premises (as well as a coiffeur and a bank!!) and a
great included breakfast.
The following day we headed out on our daytrip to see the
Dashur pyramids and Memphis.
Noga Tours Vehicle
Our trip was arranged by Salah Muhammad
(recommended in Let's Go and Lonely Planet, aka www.first24hours.com, aka
Noga Tours) and cost $20 a person for the day. Doing this
daytrip independently is near-impossible. So, it was us, the guide, and a
driver. The guide was relatively informed, but repeated a lot of information. He
didn't bother taking us to the Bent Pyramid, leaving us with the wrong
impression that it was a long walk (in fact we could have driven.) We got a view
of it from The Red Pyramid. These pyramids are the world's oldest, and are
smaller than those we would see at Giza. However, they are still worth the trip.
Memphis is an "outdoor museum" with a couple of monuments, but doesn't take too
long. As was pretty typical of our experiences in Egypt, every time we tried to
take pictures, one of the locals would rush into the frame, and try to extract
baksheesh out of us after for having had his picture taken.
After the obligatory trip to a papyrus 'museum', we headed back to Cairo where
we headed to Hamis Travel, who was 'organizing' our cruise.
WARNING - HAMIS TRAVEL, Cairo, Egypt We arranged a 4 night cruise through Hamis Travel in Cairo. They came recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was a planning disaster. After several email exchanges (with long periods of silence from them), we had arranged a price of $500 US for a 4 night cruise (per person). We were told the name of the
Ramses StationSo, we found the office right by the main train station (Ramses). It turns out, NOTHING had been booked. We had thought that we would spend 10 minutes paying by credit card, everything would be ready, and we'd be on our way. It took 3 hours. The Dutch owner Anny Abou Shaady was incredibly slow doing anything (owing to her inability to do anything herself, she had to keep calling the room next door and getting her employees to do all the work). The train had not been arranged - and in fact she didn't even know the train times. She had no further information on the cruise (we wanted to nail down exactly what we'd be seeing). In fact, the cruise voucher she finally produced was for a different boat altogether - and in fact, wasn't even the one we ended up on! The whole thing was a nightmare. At that point, we should have walked away from it, but I really wanted to do a Nile Cruise. I had no idea how much of a mistake it would end up being.
After we finally escaped with some vouchers in hand and others promised to arrive at our Hotel the next day, we headed to the bus station to get our bus tickets to go to St Catherine's (Mt. Sinai). It was a bit of a hike from Ramses Stn (especially since our maps were sketchy), but we eventually got there.
The following day, we headed to Giza to see the pyramids. We took the metro to the Giza stop, where we should have just gotten a cab the rest of the way. Our guidebook however promised us a mini-bus from the metro to the
Giza Pyramids
The pyramids are beautiful, but the site is crowded and pretty filthy. Camel owners roam the site trying to extract money from the tourists however they can - fortunately the tourist police keep them mostly in line. The Sphinx is smaller than I thought it would be, and also predictably very crowded. It is possible to enter the Great Pyramid, but they restrict the numbers - 150 entry tickets are sold in the morning, and 150 in the afternoon. We missed the morning rush, and lined up at 12:40 for the 1:00 ticket sale, and we were pretty close to the front of the line. The tickets are expensive - US $16. No cameras are allowed inside, and they actually seemed to be enforcing this. (Although I did see some Japanese tourists obviously carrying cameras, maybe their guide Baksheesh'ed their cameras inside).
Al Muski Street
The next morning we had our first experience with Cairo taxis, and it actually went pretty smoothly. The guidebook had warned us that the system for taxis in Cairo is as follows: When you get in, never ever discuss a price. If the driver wants to discuss a price, get out and find another cab. Tell the driver where you want to go. When you get there, get out of the car and hand the driver folded up bills corresponding to the exact fare. No change is ever given. Cabdrivers will often yell at you, trying to extract more money, but just walk away.
How do you know the exact fare? Well, we asked at our hotel. It cost just under $1, and in this case the taxi didn't try to hassle us into paying more. The guidebooks often post suggestions for what fares you should be willing to pay, but these fares can be out of date as guidebooks are typically 2-3 years old.
We took the Upper Egypt Bus Company direct bus to St Katherine's. It's a 9 hour trip. It took us about 2 hours to get out of Cairo, owing in large part to a 1 hour stop at another bus station on the edge of the city. No one seemed to be in a hurry.
Upper Egypt Bus
Company
The trip to St Katherine's is pretty, especially at the end when getting into the Sinai desert. We watched the sun set over the Suez River. (Unfortunately, crossing the Suez is rather boring, as it's just an underground tunnel). When we finally got to St Katherine's, the fight began with taxi drivers to get a reasonable price to be taken up to the Monastery, a couple of miles away. There were two other backpackers, and, fortunately, one of the employees of the monastery was also looking for a ride. With his help we managed to pay 50 cents apiece to take us up to the Monastery.
The Monastery is the closest hotel to the trails up Mount Sinai, and is a comfortable good option. It cost us $60 US a night, but that included dinner and breakfast. Dinner was very good, although the meat (as everywhere in Egypt) wasn't that great. The vegetarian option was the same meal minus the meat.
St Catherine's
Monastery
The popular option to see the Mountain is to climb up at 3am-4am to watch the sunrise. Not for us - we're on vacation. The crowds marching past our room woke us up, but we woke up at a leisurely 8am to meet them as they were coming down for breakfast.
We visited the Monastery first, as it closes at 11am. We saw the descendant of the burning bush, and the Church of St Katherine. It was the only tourist site we saw in all of Egypt which didn't charge admission. There's also a little museum on site, which is worth visiting, but there was a small admission fee for this.
Al Muski Street
The pathside vendors sell water at a not too ridiculous price - $2US for a large bottle of water at the top actually seemed pretty reasonable. Camels ply the path almost all the way to the top, for those feeling lazy. The remaining 30-45 minute hike up to the top is what would have concerned me during a sunrise hike. It's a pretty steep scramble up the trail, and I can only imagine it wouldn't be too fun with a huge convoy of tourists jockeying for position to see the sunrise. At the top, there is a locked Greek Orthodox Chapel and a great panorama. During the day, we had the top to ourselves - very peaceful.
The steps down aren't really steps in most places, more of a series of strategically placed rocks. It’s certainly not something that we would want to hike in the dark, or with small children. By the time we got back, we decided to stay another night instead of continuing to Sharm-el-Sheikh.
There are no direct buses to Sharm-el-Sheikh - it's necessary to go through Dahab. The one bus for Dahab leaves at 1pm. We took a taxi down from the Monastery (which doesn't accept credit cards by the way, but does accept US$), and instead of taking 2 buses to Sharm, we arrived at a price of $40 US for him to take us directly. It's about a 3.5 hour drive.
He dropped us off in downtown Sharm-el-Sheikh, where we picked up the most expensive groceries we bought in Egypt, got more cash (dispensed in 100 LE notes, the first time we'd seen them. Tourists in Sharm have MONEY), and headed for the Sheraton. I'd managed to arrange a price of $50 US a night on the net (which turned into $80 unfortunately, I missed that the $50 was a 'one person' price for a 'double' room) . The taxi driver (actually a 'mini-bus' driver) told us it would be 10 LE to get to the hotel, direct. Then he started picking up other people on the way. A huge shouting fight ensued, and finally we won (screaming at people always seemed to work in Egypt - we heard plenty of screaming matches between Egyptians), and he continued directly with no other passengers.
The Sheraton Sharm-el-Sheikh is a beautiful hotel. We were staying in the hotel, not the resort, so we can't comment on that. The building, the grounds, everything is beautiful. There is a constant parade of cleaning staff. The pool is beautful, complete with a swim-up bar. The beach isn't really soft sand, but there are lots of umbrellas to go around. It's not really a swimming beach, as there's lots of coral.
The following day, we headed out on a somewhat badly organized snorkeling trip to Ras Muhammad National Park. Although the Sheraton gave the impression it was their own trip, in fact they were selling it for the Hilton, who was selling it for "Sun and Fun". After we were passed between the different parties, we were able to rent snorkels, masks, fins, and a wetsuit for Wendy. The boat was clean, big, and modern. Lunch was delicious. The instructors/snorkel leaders were organised, and we felt very safe in the water. Ironically, one of the other Sheraton guests told us that the coral right off the Sheraton's beach was just as nice as what we saw on the boat. But hey - how could we have known. By the time we got back to the Sheraton, the sun was setting.
Dinner that night was room service. :) Because of the holiday, the only vegetarian friendly restaurant was serving a special "fixed price" $110 US menu. Uh, no thanks. Room service was very good though, and cost $25 US for both of us to eat!
The following day was our only day to enjoy the hotel's amenities. Unfortunately, it clouded over around noon and didn't clear up till we had to leave. The Sheraton had arranged a taxi for us to get to the fast shuttle boat to Hurghada. We had to go through security as if we were getting on a plane. The boat, run by International Fast Ferries (http://www.internationalfastferries.com/html/home.html) was modern and nice, but it rocked a fair bit. I was feeling pretty green by the end of the trip, and several other people on the boat were sick.
Our hotel in Hurghada, the 4-room Sunshine Hotel, was back to our usual fare. (I.e. a complete dive). If we'd been staying more than one night, we would have switched. The guy who ran it was nice, it just wasn't clean, the beds were literally falling apart, and the bathrooms were scary (I don't take showers in bathrooms where there is bare wiring exposed). Our guidebook described the hotel as "homey". I don't want to see the author's home.
The bus to Luxor was half an hour late. We were lucky to get seats. You can't buy seats in advance (as it's not an originating point), so there's just a mad scramble to get seats as the bus pulls in. A family we met on the bus told us that they hadn't been able to get on the bus the previous day as it was full. Take *that*, schedule!
The scenery to Luxor is more desert, but still pretty. When we booked our hotel in Luxor, the hotel owner had warned us that when we step off the bus, hotel touts will swarm us, try to tell us his hotel is full, or closed, or burned down last night, etc. It wasn't that bad, we shook them off fairly easily. Rather than deal with more dishonest cabbies, we walked the half hour to the Happy Land Hotel We were disappointed to hear that the rate he had quoted us was "per person" - so double what we thought it was. My guess is that he doubled our rate because A) We looked tired and didn't look like we were going to change hotels B) We had told him we were going to go on a cruise the next day (not booked through him). A lot of the budget hotels make most of their money off arranging tours for their guests, and sell them pretty hard. He was right, we couldn't be bothered to fight. He tried to also charge us for the free breakfast, but we stood our ground on this one and got our crappy free breakfast.
However, the room was immaculate - the cleanest room we stayed in in Egypt (apart from the Sheraton). Make sure if you stay here though to ask for a room on the upper floors - our room was right beside reception and there was lots of reception and street noise. We headed outside and walked down the corniche (the road that straddles the Nile) to Luxor Temple. We took some good evening photos, and met Gord from waywardtraveller.org. Always good to meet another traveler on the road, especially a fellow Canuck!
We ate at the Amoun Restaurant, which is a tourist restaurant 5 minutes away from the Luxor Temple. It's an outdoor restaurant, service was fast, and the food was good.
The next day the horror of our cruise began. We were surprised that the guide was supposed to pick us up only at 10 - quite late, considering that this was to be our only day to actually see Luxor. He took us to the boat, which was moored not alongside all the other beautiful boats we had seen on our previous evening walk, but in a deserted area just outside the main strip of the corniche, with trash strewn about everywhere. The boat was deserted except for a guy manning the reception. We were getting more and more apprehensive of what we were in for. We demanded to see the room, and it was acceptable (although on the first floor, so our window was only a porthole). The reception staff wanted to hold our passports - alarm bells immediately went off. Every guidebook we've read told us that under no circumstance should you let your passport out of your sight. They showed us the pile of passports from other passengers (where were they?), and with a big leap of faith we handed ours over.
Next we were passed off from the guy who met us on the boat to our real tourguide, who barely spoke English. We established (mostly through gestures) that the other passengers had left at 7:30am from the boat, as we should have, but we were late. Explaining to him that we were told to only be ready to go at 10am didn't help. We told him that we did NOT want to miss out on any of our guided tours because of Hamis Travel's mistake, and that he was to skip the lunch and go on with the tour. We kept asking him when we'd join the other tour group - we thought he was just our temporary guide until we caught up with the rest of the group. He wasn't able to answer that question.
Our guided tours of the sites we were seeing was a sad joke. He had very, very little information, and what he did have was mostly wrong. So typically he would give us his schpiel for 5 minutes, then tell us "ok, free time now, meet in 30 minutes at car". Our supposed tour of Karnak Temple was a little longer - 10 minutes - but all other tourguides were at least 1 hour. He refused to walk out of the shade, kept complaining about how hot it was, while still wearing an enormous sweater. Fortunately, we had our Lonely Planet and Let's Go guidebooks with us, so we ended up self-guiding. Then he would complain when we were back that we took too long, and that it was so hot. Unbelievable. He would complain every time Wendy tried to take a picture because she wasn't listening to him. Not that there was much to listen to - either seriously every Pharaoh who ever made a statue of himself in Egypt was Ramses II, or our guide was sadly misinformed.
We finally established that we were never to join another group - he was our tour guide for the entire cruise. When we got back to the boat, we called Hamis Travel to complain. Their Luxor rep of course wanted to meet us in person to discuss (this seems to be a cultural difference - all discussions must take place in person, and not on the phone!). So we met him on a street corner, and he told us he would take care of it.
Vaguely re-assured, we headed out that evening by ourselves to the Karnak Temple sound and lights show. There are various shows throughtout the evening in various languages - although to be honest, the language was sort of irrelevent. As is typical for sound and light shows, the narration was over the top and vaguely annoying. During the first part of the show, the group moves en masse together through the temple, while they light up various parts, overly dramatic music plays, and voices drone on in stuffy English accents about stuff that doesn't make sense. After about 30 minutes of this, they herded us past some snack stands to some bleechers overlooking the 'sacred' lake, where we could get an overview of the Temple complex. The rest of the show would take place here. They lit up various parts of the temple, and the overly dramatic music and narration went on. And on. Finally after about 30 minutes of this (I pity the poor family of the guy in front of us who would have to watch his home video of the *whole thing*) people started getting fed up and leaving, us included. The first part of the show (walking through the temple at night) was interesting, but they really could have ended it there.
Upon returning to the boat, we were happy to see other passengers on board. It was mostly older Europeans, but we found some younger people to hang out with. The meals (buffet style) were good, but there was not much in the way of vegetarian food. In addition, despite the lightly filled boat, there was often not enough food to go around. We learned quickly to load up on deserts as soon as we got there, or there wouldn't be anything left. For some reason, the Europeans ate *quickly*. There goes that stereotype.
Returning to our room, we heard a knock at the door. What happened next was a very uncomfortable moment. It was our tour guide, asking us why he'd been fired. He tried to blame it on *our* lack of English - because we often switched into French so he couldn't understand us! English is our first language, so usually; we don't have too much trouble speaking it! He told us he'd be getting off the boat, and didn't know if there'd be a replacement. So for the next day, we had no clue if we'd even have a tour guide. We arranged to tag along with other people's groups if nothing happened.
Getting through the locks at Esna was like watching grass grow - All the boats leave Luxor heading south on Monday, and so there's inevitably a huge bottleneck at the locks. We sat around in an industrial area for almost 24 hours waiting for our "turn" to pass through the locks. Not really how we'd imagined spending our vacation.
The weather on the boat in December was brisk. There was a couple of times where it warmed up enough that we could have swum in the micro-sized swimming pool on the top sun-deck, but we passed. We didn't see anyone else in the pool either. Otherwise, it was just a lot of playing cards, reading books, and watching the scenery go by - some of it pretty, some not so much so.
The interesting thing about watching the Nile go by is the realization of just how much life the river gives. There is always a strip of land on either side where there is life, towns, fields, but beyond that.. nothing. Desert, mountains, nothing.
Edfu was our first stop as we made our way south towards Aswan. Here was where we met our new guide. He spoke English better than our first guide, but overall was not much more competent then the first guide. The temple is located at some distance from the port, so row after row of caleche drivers (horse and carriage) line up to ferry the tourists to the temple.
When Wendy wanted to take photos of the temple in the setting sun before she lost the light, guide#2 got upset "You give me your time first, then I give you my time". In other words, I want to do my piece, say my spiel, then go off and have a coffee with my buddies in town while you wander around". So, we lost our light and good photos because we were too Canadian about it and didn't want to make a fuss.
The temple is very impressive and very well preserved. He did have lots of interesting stories to tell us - we're not sure how many of them were accurate, but at least they were entertaining. Frequently, both our guide books disagreed with what he was saying - and we heard many other tourguides with different explanations for the same thing.
The next stop was Kom Ombo. This temple is not in as good condition as Edfu, but it's also very different and beautiful in its own way. It's a double temple built during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The big negative, however, is that everyone arrives to visit this temple at once, so it's crawling with people - a photographer's nightmare. I'm sure the cruise boats come and go in batches (according to the schedule of the locks), so visiting Kom Ombo from Aswan by bus, or on a felucca, would be a much better choice and would let you more truly enjoy it. In addition, since it's only tour groups there moving as one big mass, as a couple, it was very difficult to maneuver around them. There are a couple of sights (the calendar, the medical instruments) that everyone must see, so it sort of forms a line up of tour groups to see the friezes.
Part of the explanation we got of the medical instruments was that one of the things we were looking at was bags of ice on someone's head. We thought he was joking at first, but actually he was completely serious. He just had no clue.
Kom Ombo to Aswan isn't a very long trip. At this point, we'd had it with our tour guide. We were supposed to be taken to the Unfinished Obelisk, the High Dam, and Philae Temple. However, these three things could be easily combined with a trip to Abu Simbel which we knew we were doing the next day. We unfortunately had already pre-arranged a trip to Abu Simbel with Hamis Travel (which didn't include these 3 side-trips). We took a flier on being able to re-arrange things, and fired our second tour guide and were out on our own once again. We called Hamis Travel, and fortunately we were able to re-arrange our day trip to Abu Simbel to include these 3 side trips. So, we had the rest of the day to ourselves. We wandered down the corniche and took a local ferry (where finally we were the only tourists) across to the Tombs of the Nobles, up on a hill overlooking the town. Although nowhere near as impressive as the tombs that we saw on the West Bank in Luxor, we were the only ones (apart from a not pushy guard/tour guide) I climbed the hill for a beautiful look over the town and surrounding countryside.
Back down on the island, we wandered through the Nubian Village. There are two different Nubian Villages that can be visited around Aswan. It sounds like the main one has been turned into a tourist trap. This one was a little more 'genuine'. Apart from one small tour group we saw ahead of us, we were only with the locals. Although most of our encounters with locals were friendly, at one point some women were shouting something at us and we decided to clear out and head back to Aswan.
We spent the rest of the day shopping in the market, and headed back to the cruise boat for our final night/dinner on board.
Early the next morning, we left for Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel borders Sudan, and there is heavy security. Tourists from Aswan are forced to join an early morning motor convoy to the site, several sleepy hours away. All manner of tour buses jostle for position as they race to the site. Once there, we only had an hour and a half to enjoy the site.
Since all the tourists from Aswan arrive at the same time, it's a zoo. There are long lines to get into the tombs, and security guards shouting at you if you dawdle. It's very difficult to get any good photos since the site is crawling with people. It's still beautiful, however, and we did enjoy it.
The other way to get there is to take a cruise boat and make a couple of days of it. I'm sure these lucky people have the site to themselves and can enjoy it at a much less hurried pace.
There wasn't really enough time to see the sites, but we had to rush back before our mini-van left. On the way back, we first stopped at the High Dam, which is definitely not worth visiting. It's a not-very-impressive dam in a not-very-impressive location. However, it was still a lot more impressive than the next site, the Unfinished Obelisk, which as far as we could tell, was just a hunk of big rock lying on the ground with streams of tourists paying $6 US apiece to see this glorious hunk of rock.
Finally, we headed to Philae Temple, the only side-trip that was worthwhile. Our mini-bus group joined together to get a good price on the ferry to the island ($1 apiece). The temple is very well preserved, and there are lots of good photo opportunities. (including an interesting sign outside the cafe!)
The mini-bus dropped us off at the hotel where Hamis Travel had arranged to leave our stuff for the day (finally, something that worked well!). We spent some more time exploring Aswan, and then got the evening train back up north to Luxor.
We arrived in Luxor exhausted. Hamis Travel had set us up at the Arabesque Hotel, and it was pretty bad. Purportedly 3 stars, those were the worse stars we've ever seen. If we had not been as tired as we were, we would have switched. We didn't pay for it (Hamis Travel gave us the voucher for free, but they originally tried to charge us US $30) and it was still too expensive. It was nasty. The linens had holes and dirt marks; the shower was explicitly constructed to inflict maximum head injuries on anyone above 5 feet tall, the street noise was very bad, etc. Fortunately it was only one night and we travel with our own towels.
The next day we woke up early and headed back to the West Bank. Although we'd visited it already on our "tour" with Hamis Travel, we wanted to head back and actually see some things. We got a local ferry across the Nile (by the way, this is much faster than the long detour to get to the bridge we had done previously with the tour). We were immediately surrounded by taxi drivers (as expected) and, as usual, found the quiet guy who wasn't aggressive and haggled with him. Although we had been prepared to pay $50 for a taxi and driver for the day (given what the guidebook told us, and our terrible haggling skills), we managed to get one for only $10 US for 5 hours. It might have been so cheap because it was New Year's morning, and there were very few tourists. He was reliable, always waiting for us at the sites we visited, and we tipped him 50% at the end of the day.
Getting around by taxi is really the best option for the independent traveler who wants to cover a lot of ground on the West Bank. The sites are spread apart, signage is not always there, and the prices for a taxi are cheap.
We visited Medinet Habu first. At the time (New Year's Day) there was only a handful of other people on the site. This was one of our favourite sites on the West Bank. The colors in the paintings were extremely well preserved, and the site was pretty big with lots to explore.
Next up we headed to the tombs of the Artisans, with some great underground (very underground) tombs. We were lucky the site was pretty empty. It was VERY hot (even underground), and only small groups are allowed into a tomb at once. I can imagine that on busy days this would not be a fun one.
Next up was the Tombs of the Nobles, but we screwed this one up. You buy tickets from the main ticket office (all tickets except Valley of the Kings are bought from a main tourism office on the street leading away from the harbor, and if you fail to buy the tickets here, you have to go BACK there, tickets are NOT available on site!). The problem was that they've divided the tombs up into groups and so to see the ones we wanted to see you needed two tickets, one to each of the tombs in that "group". Although there is only one ticket for the tombs of the nobles, once you visit one tomb within a "group" you can then only visit another tomb in that group with the same ticket. We didn't understand this. So, we wasted our tombs of the noble entry tickets on a tomb we didn't really want to see (cause we'd actually managed to find that one :) ), thinking we could still use it later for the other tomb. I still don't really understand what happened, as none of the guards spoke English very well. Surprisingly, they couldn't even be bribed.
We went back to the Valley of the Kings and tried to visit some of the tombs we were not able to see the first time. Unfortunately, most of the tombs we had wanted to see were closed. The good news though was that the tombs we did make it into were all pretty empty, so much so that we even took (flash-free) photos, without fear of suffering the wrath of the guards (or at least having to pay them off).
After re-visiting the West Bank, we wandered around Luxor's street markets, and eventually ended up back at Karnak Temple. There, we spent some more time taking photos and hanging out, soaking it in. In case we had any doubt, listening in on other tour groups made it clear just how completely uninformed and useless the tour guide from Hamis Travel was. We walked back along the corniche and watched the sun set over the Nile. We thought about going in to the Luxor Museum, but the ridiculous price tag ($20, if memory serves) dissuaded us. The price had tripled from what our guide book listed (the guide book being 2 years out of date). Student discounts were not substantial.
We walked to the train station and boarded our night train for Cairo. We had reserved a 2 person sleeper cabin, which, while looking a little dated, was very clean. The linens were very nice, the in-room sink was spotless, and the included dinner/breakfast was passable. Not bad for $50.
Arriving in Cairo for our last few days, we headed out of the train station towards the taxi rank for the inevitable fight with the taxi drivers. They wanted to charge us quadruple the local rate to drive us to our hotel. When we objected and offered the local rate, it was accepted, and as we were putting our bags in the car, the driver added "per person". We grabbed our bags out of the trunk and an argument ensued. They learned some new English. Wendy: "I know how much it should f**king cost to get to that hotel, so don't rip me off. I'm so tired of this s**t!" With these words, the argument ended, and we finally hooked up with a driver who claimed to know where the hotel was. He didn't, and after a tour of the downtown area and many stops to ask people, he finally dropped us off at the right place.
We tried to stay at the Berlin Hotel again. The outside of the building is grungy, and the elevator had long since passed away. 6 flights of stairs later, we were showed to a room which seemed ok. As we were checking in, another guest came out of another room, complaining how loud it was. The owner told him not to worry, that he would switch him rooms. He told us the room he showed us wasn't available, and that we could leave our bags with him, and he would move our bags to the room (or one similar) when it was cleaned. I specified with him that it would NOT be the room that the other guest had just complained about.
Fast forward to when we came back to our room at the end of the day. Of course, it WAS the room the other guest had complained about. Luckily, we hadn't paid yet. We screamed and complained, and of course no other rooms were available. At this point, we only had one more night left, and we had really had it with being screwed over by unscrupulous businesses. We grabbed our bags and left the hotel. We wandered the area and eventually settled at the Lotus Hotel. A member of the 'hotel staff' followed us up to the reception.
We had learned that when wandering looking for hotels without a reservation, it is very important to fight off any touts that might want to take you to the lobby. The hotel will increase the daily charge to pay off the tout. Fortunately, in this case, the guy did actually work for the hotel so there was no problem. We had a positive experience at this hotel - it was clean, with a private shower (with hot water).
Rewind. During the day, we had visited the Egyptian Museum. It's big. Really big. The building itself is pretty plain, and filled to bursting with ancient artifacts. The English labeling is pretty scarce, so make sure you have a good guidebook.
In order to get into the museum, it is first necessary to get through a couple of lineups. One to buy tickets, one to go through security, and the last one to actually get into the museum. Security is fierce. You have to check any cameras and camcorders, no exceptions. Everything gets x-ray'ed. Leap of faith - leaving our expensive camera equipment with a security guard who gets paid peanuts (turned out it was ok). We were lucky enough to be in the first batch of people in. We immediately asked the first guard "Tutankhamen?" He pointed the way. We ran, kept asking every guard we saw "Tutankhamen?", and finally made it. We were the FIRST ONES IN! The entry guard high-fived us for our efforts, and proclaimed us the winner. He was also excited to find we're Canadian, and proclaimed his love for Celine Dion! Not only that, but we had about 10 minutes *alone* with Mr. Tut, able to inspect the beautiful gold mask from every angle. Finally the crowds started trickling in and we moved on to other parts of the museum.
Once the museum filled up, the crowds became unbearable. Everyone is with a large tour group, and the tour group leads will fight tooth and nail to get the best position for their group around the display cases. We got yelled at to move several times, which we ignored and just shot nasty glances back. The tour group leaders were unbelievably rude, and it really tainted our experience. I got so pissed off that I would quickly move to block display cases that I could see were a tour group's next target.
Next up, we visited Coptic Cairo (an easy trip on Cairo's fabulous subway), the old Christian section of Cairo. We wandered through a few churches, a synagogue, and were marvelously not hassled by anyone. The churches weren't that spectacular, but it wasn't that crowded, and was certainly a pleasant break from the crowds of the Museum. Our next stop was the City of the Dead. We took a taxi out to the Mausoleum and Mosque of Qaytbay. The taxi driver offered to stay to drive us back, but we didn't want to even think about how much that would cost, so we said no. We were the only tourists around and I have to say we felt a little uncomfortable. A guardian showed us around a little bit, but it wasn't anything that was worth the trip. We found our way back to the main street (8 lane road) leading back to town, but we had to cross it in order to get a cab going the right way. It was a scary moment, but we made it across. Our whoops of celebratory laughter and high-fives were met with congratulations from an Egyptian fellow who'd watched our progress. We finally grabbed a cab and wandered around the Khan-al-Khalili. We had dinner at the Restaurant Felfela, right across from our hotel (as we did the following night). It's a wonderful restaurant with beautiful decorations, great ambience, and great service. Highly recommended – just watch for any meat surprises in the vegetarian dishes.
The following day we set out in the morning to explore Islamic Cairo. We started out at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. This Mosque is very photogenic, although different from others we'd seen. Most of the Mosque was outside - or at least most of the Mosque that we saw. It's a very photogenic Mosque, with lots of interesting details, rows of columns, etc.
Next we headed to Rafai Mosque, and the Madrasa of Sultan Hassan. To be honest, we were really not impressed by these mosques after what we'd seen in Turkey and Morocco. They all charge expensive admission, there's no one actually worshipping in them, they're not well kept up... We should have just stopped after Ibn Tulun and gone back to shopping.
We walked to the Citadel from the mosques. Despite being RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER it takes about 1.5 hours to walk there because you have to walk all the way round the far side. They do this so they can funnel everyone through the same entry gate and charge admission. The admission gate itself is flanked by bank machines, and tight security. If you have anything that's not allowed, they'll store it for you, for a good price for you my friend. We visited The Muhammad Ali Mosque, which is a bad copy of Istanbul's Blue Mosque.
We cabbed it back to the Khan-al-Khalili, and did some last minute souvenir shopping. We bought a huge hanging lamp, and some other souvenirs. We spent the next few hours trying to figure out how to protect the lamp for its long ride home. We asked someone on the street, and what happened next unfortunately summed up our experience with Egyptians. He kindly said his friend has a box and he would bring us to it. The fact that he spoke English fluently should have warned us he was not on the up and up. He brought us to his friend's closed alabaster shop, and said he would go get the box, and to wait there. Meanwhile his friend started the hard sell on his crappy China-made souvenirs. During the course of the conversation, it was made obvious to us that he intended to *sell* us this crappy box, for $20 US. Once we pieced together this was yet another scam, we got out of there as fast as we could.
We finally got a box from a grocery store for about a dollar. While in the store, we had an interesting conversation with an Egyptian who was just visiting, on a break from his studies in London. He asked us if we had enjoyed our stay in Egypt. Not wanting to offend anyone, we of course lied. He seemed genuinely surprised that we supposedly had a good time.
The next day we were glad to be heading back home.
Our experience with Egyptians was on the whole very negative. Almost everyone who is involved with tourism (to any extent) is out to rip you off. There are no 'good guys' in the tourism trade. Hell, even one of the tourism police in Aswan tried to extract a bribe out of us. There's no escape from it.
The only really positive experience and we do cling to this, happened early on after we arrived in Cairo. We bought some water and chips from a local grocery store, and being tired, I pulled out the wrong bill - a bill worth 10 times the price I meant to. The shopkeeper gave it back to me, saying "I think you meant to give me a 1 pound note". To be honest, I don't think that would even happen at home.
So of course it is not fair to paint all Egyptians with the same brushstroke. Unfortunately though, when touring around Egypt, the people you tend to have contact with are all related to tourism.
It seems it would be easy to clean up some of this. There are tourism police everywhere - and all the Egyptian government would have to do is slap a hefty fine on people harassing or disturbing tourists. Morocco did this in Marrakech, and while we were there, it seemed like a huge success - we really were left alone.
So, for this reason, Egypt is the first country we've been to where we would recommend going as part of a tour group rather than traveling independently. You still get to see all the ancient sites, but the tour guide would be responsible for dealing with the dishonesty of the tourism business.
Post trip update: Hamis Travel compensated us $100 for the problems we had. On a $1200 price tag for the cruise, this was hardly sufficient compensation.